Peter Chianca: Your hair is even greater than you think

Great Clips, which is a hair salon chain so successful that it does surveys when it’s not cutting people’s hair, has put together a list of the greatest and worst hairstyles of all time. And the sheer effort they were able to expend in doing so proves that society, as a whole, is spending WAY too much time thinking about hair.

There’s a reason all the really smart fictional people -- Captain Picard, Daddy Warbucks, Kojak, Vin Diesel -- are bald. It’s because they’re not distracted every morning by that mop of frizzy material sprouting willy nilly from their craniums. Hence they’re out piloting starships and adopting plucky orphans and solving crimes, while the rest of us are fruitlessly brushing in various directions in an effort to look more like John Stamos. Even the women are doing this.

But don’t take my word for it: Great Clips, which is a hair salon chain so successful that it does surveys when it’s not cutting people’s hair, has put together a list of the greatest and worst hairstyles of all time. And the sheer effort they were able to expend in doing so proves that society, as a whole, is spending WAY too much time thinking about hair. (“Sheer” effort -- get it? See, if I hadn’t spent the last 20 minutes combing I could have come up with a funnier homophone there.)

I learned a lot from the Greatest Hairstyles of All Time survey, including:

1) I have no idea what a “layer” is.

2) There is something that exists called a “Faux Hawk.”

3) If you’re over 40, it’s impossible to read the phrase “Greatest Hairstyles of All Time” without hearing it in Muhammad Ali’s voice (of ALLL TIIIIME! etc.).

I also realized that contrary to what you might think, women’s hair is pretty boring when compared to men’s, despite all the style and color options popularized by famous women with hair (Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Margaret Thatcher). For evidence, take a look at the three hairstyles named the “greatest”:

1) Medium Layers (a.k.a. “The Rachel”)

2) Long, Straight Hair

3) Bangs

Are you asleep yet? Two of those don’t even have names. (Although apparently No. 2 can involve some sort of heated metal clamps, which gives it a sort of steam-punky appeal.)

Now, let’s take a look at the greatest hairstyles for men:

1) Bed Head

I’m going to stop right there just to point out, in case you failed to take notice of this yourself, that the No. 1 hairstyle for men involves GETTING OUT OF BED. This is a slap in the face to every man who's ever bought a bottle of mousse. You know who you are.

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(Note: Apparently this hairstyle has been popularized in recent months by the boy band One Direction, which is ironic since it’s well known that every one of their hair follicles is personally positioned by Simon Cowell to look unkempt.)

OK, to move on:

2) Side Part

3) Hockey Hair

Now, No. 2 is fairly obvious, because it’s what Superman had. But I had to look up No. 3 -- it’s apparently what 20 years ago would have been a mullet, but by the grace of God has evolved into a scruffy, poke-out-from-under-the-helmet coif that’s not just for playing hockey. You can also play lacrosse with it.

The survey also covers the worst hairstyles: for women, Perm, Feathered and Asymmetrical, and for men, Bowl Cut, Caesar and the aforementioned Faux Hawk, which seems to involve pushing all your hair to the very top of your head, like a front-end loader piling loam.

I’m proud to report that I personally have none of these, although I don’t have any of the greatest hairstyles either. In fact, though Great Clips offers a presumably comprehensive chart of the 10 definitive “Men’s Hair Styles,” mine is nowhere to be found. Apparently “Brush It Straight Back And Hope There’s As Much There Today As There Was Yesterday” is not the tonsorial masterstroke I’d always assumed it to be.

But now that I’ve been enlightened by Great Clips and its survey, you’ll definitely see a renewed effort on my part when it comes to my own personal hair grooming. I’m going to start by getting out of bed. John Stamos would want it that way.

Peter Chianca is editor in chief for GateHouse Media New England’s north-of-Boston newspapers and websites and author of “Glory Days: Springsteen’s Greatest Albums.” Follow him on Twitter at @pchianca.